Adoption of agriculture
Botanical remains at the site were well-preserved due to the extreme aridity. The archaeologists traced the adoption of agriculture as the main source of subsistence by the inhabitants of Pernil Alto. They recovered the botanical remains of ten genera of edible plants. The most important wild food plant was a species of mesquite (Prosopis pallida) which produces edible beans and pods. The most important cultivated crops were sweet potatoes (Ipomoea batatas) and lima beans (Phaseolus lunatus). Other food crops cultivated were Canna (Canna indica), an edible root; beans (Phaseolus vulgaris); guava (Psidium guajava), a fruit; jack-beans (Canavalia); squash (Cucurbita); and Jicama (Pachyrhizus), an edible root. The people of Pernil Alto also cultivated the bottle gourd (Lagenaria siceraria) for use as vessels. The two most common food plants in the later history of Peru, maize and potatoes, were absent from the site. None of the food plants grown at Pernil Alto originated there, but were imported from agricultural cultures elsewhere.
The examination of botanical remains enabled the archaeologists to determine that in 3800 BCE more than 60 percent of the food consumed by the inhabitants of Pernil Alto was from wild plants. By 3000 BCE more than 70 percent of the food consumed was from cultivated plants. The cross-over point at which food from cultivated plants equaled the food from wild plants was about 3300 BCE. Over a period of about 800 years Pernil Alto had evolved from being a hamlet occupied by hunter-gatherers with limited agriculture to a village occupied by farmers who grew most of their food.
The village of Pernil Alto was abandoned in about 2900 BCE, possibly due to the Rio Grande River changing its course to a more distant part of the valley. The archaeologists claim that Pernil Alto is the "oldest hitherto known agricultural village of the Central Andes," although similar villages of equal or greater age may still be found in the Andes foothills. Older villages also existed near the Pacific coast of Peru, although they depended as much or more upon marine resources than agriculture.
A bean is the seed of several plants in the family Fabaceae, which are used as vegetables for human or animal food. They can be cooked in many different ways, including boiling, frying, and baking, and are used in many traditional dishes throughout the world.
Phaseolus coccineus, known as runner bean, scarlet runner bean, or multiflora bean, is a plant in the legume family, Fabaceae. Another common name is butter bean, which, however, can also refer to the lima bean, a different species.
A lima bean, also commonly known as the butter bean, sieva bean, double bean, Madagascar bean, or wax bean is a legume grown for its edible seeds or beans.
Green beans are young, unripe fruits of various cultivars of the common bean, although immature or young pods of the runner bean, yardlong bean, and hyacinth bean are used in a similar way. Green beans are known by many common names, including French beans, string beans, and snap beans or simply "snaps". In the Philippines, they are also known as "Baguio beans" or "habichuelas" to distinguish them from yardlong beans.
Canna indica, commonly known as Indian shot, African arrowroot, edible canna, purple arrowroot, Sierra Leone arrowroot, is a plant species in the family Cannaceae. It is native to much of South America, Central America, the West Indies, and Mexico. It is also naturalized in the southeastern United States, and much of Europe, sub-Saharan Africa, Southeast Asia, and Oceania. Canna indica has been a minor food crop cultivated by indigenous peoples of the Americas for thousands of years.
The Eastern Agricultural Complex in the woodlands of eastern North America was one of about 10 independent centers of plant domestication in the pre-historic world. Incipient agriculture dates back to about 5300 BCE. By about 1800 BCE the Native Americans of the woodlands were cultivating several species of food plants, thus beginning a transition from a hunter-gatherer economy to agriculture. After 200 BCE when maize from Mexico was introduced to the Eastern Woodlands, the Native Americans of the eastern United States and adjacent Canada slowly changed from growing local indigenous plants to a maize-based agricultural economy. The cultivation of local indigenous plants other than squash and sunflower declined and was eventually abandoned. The formerly domesticated plants returned to their wild forms.
An andén, Spanish for "platform", is a stair-step like terrace dug into the slope of a hillside for agricultural purposes. The term is most often used to refer to the terraces built by pre-Columbian cultures in the Andes mountains of South America. Andenes had several functions, the most important of which was to increase the amount of cultivatable land available to farmers by leveling a planting area for crops. The best known andenes are in Peru, especially in the Sacred Valley near the Inca capital of Cuzco and in the Colca Canyon. Many andenes have survived for more than 500 years and are still in use by farmers throughout the region.
The Palpa Province is the smallest of five provinces of the Ica Region of Peru and the only landlocked province of the region. The capital of the province is the city of Palpa.
The Canna Agriculture Group contains all of the varieties of Canna used in agriculture. Canna achira and Canna edulis are generic terms used in South America to describe the cannas that have been selectively bred for agricultural purposes, normally derived from C. discolor. It is grown especially for its edible rootstock from which starch is obtained, but the leaves and young seed are also edible, and achira was once a staple foodcrop in Peru and Ecuador.
Puquios are ancient systems of subterranean aqueducts which allow water to be transported over long distances in hot dry climates without loss of much of the water to evaporation. Puquios are found in the coastal deserts of southern Peru, especially in the Nazca region, and northern Chile. Forty-three puquios in the Nazca region were still in use in the early 21st century and relied upon to bring fresh water for irrigation and domestic use into desert settlements. The origin and dating of the Nazca puquios is disputed, although some archaeologists have estimated that their construction began about 500 CE by indigenous people of the Nazca culture.
Guitarrero Cave is located in the Callejón de Huaylas valley in Yungay Province, in the Ancash region of Peru. The cave stands 50 m (160 ft) above the Santa River and 2,580 m (8,460 ft) meters above sea level.
The Andean civilizations were complex societies of many cultures and peoples mainly developed in the river valleys of the coastal deserts of Peru. They stretched from the Andes of southern Colombia southward down the Andes to Chile and northwest Argentina. Archaeologists believe that Andean civilizations first developed on the narrow coastal plain of the Pacific Ocean. The Caral or Norte Chico civilization of Peru is the oldest known civilization in the Americas, dating back to 3200 BCE.
The agricultural practices of the Native Americans inhabiting the American Southwest, which includes the states of Arizona and New Mexico plus portions of surrounding states and neighboring Mexico, are influenced by the low levels of precipitation in the region. Irrigation and several techniques of water harvesting and conservation were essential for successful agriculture. To take advantage of limited water, the southwestern Native Americans utilized irrigation canals, terraces (trincheras), rock mulches, and floodplain cultivation. Success in agriculture enabled some native Americans to live in communities which numbered in the thousands as compared to their former lives as hunter-gatherers in which their bands numbered only a few dozen.
Osmore River system flows northeast to southwest in the Moquegua Region of southern coastal Peru. The river has its origin in the snow peaks of the Chuqi Ananta and Arundane mountains, at an elevation of 5,100 metres (16,700 ft) above sea level. It changes names as it descends from the Andes: From its origin it is called the Moquegua, then Osmore in the middle valley as Rio Coscori and Rio Tumilaca including where the river disappears into subterranean channels, and further down in the lower reaches as Rio Ilo.
The Casma–Sechin culture of Peru refers to the large concentration of pre-historic ruins in the valleys of the Casma River and its tributary the Sechin River and along the nearby coast of the Pacific Ocean. The ruins include major archaeological sites such as Sechin Bajo, Sechin Alto, Cerro Sechin, Mojeque, Chankillo, and Taukachi-Konkan, as well as other smaller sites. Most of these inland sites are found in the river valleys about 20 kilometres (12 mi) distant from the ocean. The seaside sites of Huaynuná and Las Haldas are found about 20 kilometres (12 mi) north and south of the mouth of the Casma River on the coast.
Muisca cuisine describes the food and preparation the Muisca elaborated. The Muisca were an advanced civilization inhabiting the central highlands of the Colombian Andes before the Spanish conquest of the Muisca in the 1530s. Their diet and cuisine consisted of many endemic flora and fauna of Colombia.
The Muisca agriculture describes the agriculture of the Muisca, the advanced civilisation that was present in the times before the Spanish conquest on the high plateau in the Colombian Andes; the Altiplano Cundiboyacense. The Muisca were a predominantly agricultural society with small-scale farmfields, part of more extensive terrains. To diversify their diet, they traded mantles, gold, emeralds and salt for fruits, vegetables, coca, yopo and cotton cultivated in lower altitude warmer terrains populated by their neighbours, the Muzo, Panche, Guane, Guayupe, Lache, Sutagao and U'wa. Trade of products grown farther away happened with the Calima, Pijao and Caribbean coastal communities around the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta.
The Archaic period, also known as the preceramic period, is a period in Mesoamerican chronology that begins around 8000 BCE and ends around 2000 BCE and is generally divided into Early, Middle, and Late Archaic periods. The period is preceded by the Paleoindian period and followed by the Preclassic period. Scholars have found it difficult to determine exactly when the Paleoindian period ends and the Archaic begins, but it is generally linked with changing climate associated with the transition from the Pleistocene to the Holocene epochs, and absence of extinct Pleistocene animals. It is also generally unclear when the Archaic period ends and the Preclassic period begins, though the appearance of pottery, large-scale agriculture, and villages signal the transition.
The Zaña River is a small river in northern Peru. The river is 119 kilometres (74 mi) in length and begins in the Andes of Cajamarca Region and ends at the Pacific Ocean in Lambayeque Region. In the lower part of the river valley, where the river flows through the coastal desert of Peru, the cultivation of irrigated crops is extensive and the Zaña is usually dry near its mouth. Upriver, at higher elevations in the Andes, precipitation is much greater and downstream floods are common. One such flood wiped out the important city of Zaña in 1720. Zaña has been rebuilt, but has never regained its former prominence as an urban center. Other towns in the lower valley are Mocupe, Cayalti, Nueva Arica, and Oyotun.
Huayuri, also called the Lost City of Huayuri, is a large pre-Columbian archaeological site which flourished from 1150 to 1450 CE in the Late Intermediate Period of Peru. Huayuri is located in the Peruvian coastal desert in Ica Region. Its prominence was probably dependent upon an climatic phase in which the area received greater precipitation than at earlier and later periods. The site may have been abandoned in the 16th century because of water shortages, conflict with the expanding Inca Empire, or epidemics of European diseases. The town of stone houses was located in a ravine between two mountain ridges, a location possibly dictated by a need for defense. Archaeological evidence indicates Huayari relied upon rainfall harvesting for its drinking water and some of the irrigated agriculture the town needed for the subsistence of the inhabitants.
